The Book Club
by JetGirl1832
Summary: Eponine decides to go to the library and finds a rather interesting book, a book in which the story is eerily familiar, except it was written over a hundred and fifty years ago. Set in the Hugo High Verse during Eponine's Sophomore year, but it is outside of the timeline I created in the story, it's a one shot because I just wanted to have some fun.


"What the hell!" Éponine exclaimed as she slammed the book shut, everyone of her friends in the cafe looked up to see what the commotion was about.

"'Ponine, what's wrong?" Alex whispered to her.

"This book," Éponine hissed, "got it from the library a few weeks ago, and I've been thinking it all rather odd, I mean it's a great story, but there are people who have my last name, and one chick has my full name!" Éponine exclaimed breathlessly, "but I decided to persevere and now this chapter!"

"What book are you reading?" Alex asked.

"'Les Miserables', written by the guy our school is named after," Éponine explained.

"I've heard of it before, but I still don't understand what's wrong," Alex smiled slightly.

"Well let me tell you," Éponine opened up the book once again and started reading aloud, "Enjolras, whose name we have mentioned first of all,-the reader shall see why later on,-was an only son and wealthy. Enjolras was a charming young man, who was capable of being terrible. He was angelically handsome. He was a savage Antinous. One would have said-"

"Stop," Alex interrupted her, "you just put in my last name, you're teasing me."

"No!" Éponine replied affronted, "listen to this," she then proceeded to read aloud again, "The greater part of the Friends of th were students, who were on cordial terms with the working classes. Here are the names of the principal ones. They belong, in a certain measure, to history: Enjolras, Combeferre, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, Courfeyrac, Bahorel, Lesgle or Laigle, Joly, Grantaire."

"No," Alex shook his head, "no, you are screwing with me."

"Am not," Éponine declared, "here," she passed him the book and he began to skim it.

"This is crazy," Alex slid the book back in her direction.

"It's all right here in print," Éponine pointed at the page, "although I'm not sure I like my character too much, seems like a deranged version of me from middle school," she wrinkled her nose.

"What in the world are you two crazies talking about?" Courfeyrac approached them.

A grin spread across Éponine's face, "Courfeyrac had, in fact, that animation of youth which may be called the beaute du diable of the mind. Later on, this disappears like the playfulness of the kitten, and all this grace ends, with the bourgeois, on two legs, and with the tomcat, on four paws."

"Woah, did you just compare me to a cat?" Courfeyrac sat down across from them.

"I didn't," Éponine smiled, "but Victor Hugo did."

"The dead guy our school is named after?" Courfeyrac cocked his head, "that's not possible.

"Guess what, he even knows you have the particle 'de' in your name," Éponine's eyes sparkled.

Courfeyrac looked around the room nervously, "Now your just making things up."

Just like she had shown Alex she showed Courfeyrac her book, "Crazy huh?"

Courfeyrac's eyes went wide, "I- I... What the hell is going on here?"

"Beats me," Éponine shrugged.

"May I jump into the conversation?" Jehan approached, "I love talking about literature."

"We know Jehan,"Courfeyrac exhaled, "and even some two hundred and something year old dead guy knows about that, and your lack of," he coughed slightly, "style."

Jehan glared at Courfeyrac, "I'm going to ignore that comment."

Slowly everyone was surrounding Eponine as she tried to explain her latest read. "And then he takes Cosette away and-" Éponine stopped, she was so sure she had forgotten something, "and... Ah screw it! If you want to know read the damn book yourselves!"

"Come on 'Ponine, you are such a good story teller," Courfeyrac pouted.

"Do you not see how frickin' long this book is? It's roughly the same shape, size, and weight as a brick!" Éponine exclaimed.

"I've got an idea," Jehan stood up, "why don't we do a book club? Then we could all read, what's this called?"

"'Les Miserables'," Éponine supplied her friend with the title.

"That's a lot of reading," Courfeyrac wrinkled his nose.

"So we only read a chapter a day," Jehan suggested, "'Ponine, how many are there?"

Éponine flipped towards the end of the book, "Three hundred and sixty five."

"What the- I'm not gonna read that book in a year!" Courfeyrac glared at Jehan.

"So maybe more like several chapters a day," Jehan amended his previous statement.

"You know what, I like that idea," Éponine smiled, "I'm in."

Alex exhaled, "Me too."

"Sure," Cosette shrugged then nudged Marius to do the same.

Soon everyone agreed and they set a date for their first meeting.

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They were several weeks into reading 'Les Miserables' and that week they were discussing the Thenardier's and their inn.

Suddenly Éponine reached out for Cosette's hand, "On behalf of myself and my uhh... Family... I want to apologize for anything I ever did to you."

All Cosette did was laugh, "'Ponine, I forgave you many years ago and you know it!"

"What are you two talking about?" Courfeyrac asked.

"Well," Cosette started, "long before I met any of you when I was really young I used to live with Éponine and her family."

"Wait, just like in the book?" Andre asked.

"Sort of," Cosette shrugged, "I was older than this 'Cosette', but it's oddly similar, I think my mother also was named Fantine..."

The cafe fell silent and Éponine shook slightly, "Bleh, just got chills, this weird and it's bringing back a lot of memories." These were memories Éponine had locked away in her mind long ago when she and Cosette became friends, they were memories she talked about with no one, not Azelma, not Cosette, no one.

"Any way back to the story-"

xxxxxxxxxxx

Surprisingly the interest in the book club remained, but perhaps it was things were getting more intriguing and exciting. Slowly more and more characters were getting introduced that had similarities to Éponine's friends, considering that the description of Alex was practically spot on it wasn't really a wonder that they didn't want to stop.

"You know it seems they have all of us in here, even Musichetta... But not her sister," Jehan noted, "it's odd."

"I think it would be just a but too freaky if everyone was in here, don't you find it strange that we frequent the same Cafe they do?" Éponine pointed out.

"You mean the students," Courfeyrac cut in, "your character is busy stalking a super pansy version of Marius, I mean come on, remember that bit with the 'passionate nostrils'?"

The whole group erupted in laughter as they recalled the initial description of Marius Pontmercy in the book.

"Yo Mar-dog," Courfeyrac leaned towards his friend, "please do tell, do you by chance have passionate nostrils?"

"I- uh..." Marius suddenly felt very self conscious as he put his hand to his nose, "no, I don't think so."

Everyone started laughing once again but Éponine tried her hardest to bring order, "but guys, you are completely missing the story! The courtship of Marius and-"

"We've been watching it for ourselves for the past almost two years," Chris cut her off.

"But this is different!" Éponine slammed her hand on the table, "Jehan..." she whispered to her friend, "I'm beginning to wish we never started this damn book club."

xxxxxxxxxx

Over the next few meetings their attitudes changed, the revolution had come and the barricade had been built and it was reaching the end. Éponine had been feeling down in the dumps reading about the death of her character and the one called Gavroche. She wasn't the only one either, at this point in the book very few students remained, more specifically it was Enjolras, Grantaire, perhaps Marius and Cosette's father, practically everyone else was gone.

"This is intense," was all Éponine could squeak out.

"You could say that again," Alex sighed.

"Hey man you let us all die!" Courfeyrac turned to Alex.

Alex gave Courfeyrac the iciest glare he could muster, practically reverting back to the days before Éponine had entered his life, "Shut up Courf."

"How about instead of comparing ourselves to the characters this time we actually talk about the story," Jehan suggested, "you know, like a normal book club would." He was met with silence from the group, "or maybe we should just call it early and thank god nothing like this has ever happened to us."

xxxxxxxxxxx

After many long weeks that turned into almost three months they had all completed what they set out to do, they all finished reading "Les Miserables" by Victor Hugo. There had been ups and downs, twists and turns as well as pages upon pages if rambles about Waterloo and the Parisian sewer system. Éponine was glad that it was over now, for now she had sworn off of Victor Hugo and was turning towards something a touch lighter in Pride and Prejudice. Although it seemed that unlike every other female in the world she was not Fitzwilliam Darcy's biggest fan. Oh no, if she wanted cold brooding and handsome give her Alexndre Enjolras any day, and she doesn't mean the one in print either.


End file.
